I'm used to seeing anti-gun editorials in major newspapers throughout the country. For all the claims of seeking truth above all, the mainstream media's innate bias becomes clear via the editorial boards of the papers. Sure, this is opinion, which is where it belongs, but the fact that absolutely no major newspaper seems to produce anything remotely pro-gun ever is telling.
But the New York Daily News's take on the VanDerStok ruling is particularly egregious.
You see, it's one thing to have an opinion that gun control is a good thing. It's another entirely to completely and totally misrepresent facts, which is precisely what happens here.
Whatever Donald Trump and the DOGE team may have to say about it, regulation is a necessary facet of a modern society, especially one where a buyer anywhere can order gun kits on the internet and have them at their door within days, ready to be assembled with basic household tools, even by people with no prior expertise. We’re not talking about blocks of steel here; guns have been sold in complete kits that need only be put together.
Despite the gun lobby’s significant political power and deep pockets, they have been able only to weaken and not entirely roll back gun control to the Wild West scenario that they would prefer. Even sympathetic lawmakers and judges understand that this approach not only could be measured in bloodshed, but contravenes the wishes of the constitutional framers, who did not in fact create an absolute and unabridged right for anyone anywhere to purchase weapons of war.
New ways of producing or selling firearms should not and cannot be taken as a carve-out to the already-insufficient regulatory scheme that we have developed. A gun is still a gun, whether it comes from a kit or is ready-made.
Except for when it's not a gun.
See, the problem with the whole thing in VanDerStok is that this is an incomplete receiver. It's not, in fact, a gun.
But the absolute stupidity here is particularly galling for me.
First, the "gun lobby's significant political power and deep pockets" is a hysterical talking point considering just how many times the gun control lobby has outspent the gun rights groups. Why does that never seem to make it into the discussion when suggesting that politicians are bought and paid for in their opinion on guns?
Of course, when you consider that many attacks on pro-Second Amendment politicians and activists seems to be predicated on the idea that everyone actually agrees gun control works, that we all just oppose it for some other reason, such an argument doesn't seem so far-fetched. They're essentially confirming that this is what they actually think, which isn't surprising but I guess it's nice to get some confirmation.
And I find it interesting that they inherently know that pro-gun lawmakers actually do think these regulations are saving lives as opposed to knowing there's just not enough political will to roll back regulations even further. The judges might be another matter, but even there, they have to worry about their decisions being overturned, which tempers them more than they might like.
As for the ways of producing or selling guns, what the editorial board has missed is that we in the gun community don't like the government dictating things to us. If you say that an 80 percent receiver is close enough, we'll start producing a 70 percent. No matter where you draw the line, we'll move just beyond it.
That's all without getting into 3D printed guns. I know some parties want that practice banned, too, but that's never going to happen successfully. The genie is out of the bottle on that one, and I'm glad it is. Sooner or later, my hope is that lawmakers recognize the stupidity of gun control and start looking at other ways to address crime--ways that will actually work, that is.
But everything in this editorial is a particular brand of stupid.
And they wonder why trust in the media is at an all-time low.
